by Kent Jennings Brockwell
Staff Writer
The Super Bowl Host Committee is raising its budget from $10 million to $12 million, said Tom Petway, the committee’s co-chair and CEO.
“We are expanding, from what I am told, to $12 million,” Petway said Tuesday at the Rotary Club of South Jacksonville luncheon at the Radisson.
Petway said the budget expansion will be achieved by selling more sponsorships and marketing plans for the game.
Besides an $800,000 contribution to the committee from the City, Petway said the committee is self-funded.
Petway also announced that a series of advertising campaigns will begin soon to invite residents of Northeast Florida to come downtown during the week before the game to participate in the multiple events surrounding the game, particularly the SuperFest near Alltel Stadium.
“SuperFest will highlight the river like it has never been highlighted before,” he said.
A lot of effort on behalf of the committee and the City has been put into making the festivities accessible to the public, he said.
In addition to those announcements, Petway told the Rotarians that Jacksonville’s Super Bowl will be, and already has become in many aspects, an unprecedented event for the city and for Super Bowl history.
“To have the 39th Super Bowl is a special mark for our city,” he said.
Besides being able to support the largest Super Bowl stadium attendance numbers in NFL history, Petway said the committee has amassed more than 9,000 volunteers, will raise more than $10 million and will host the most widely watched Super Bowl ever with an expected one billion people watching on television, all of which are Super Bowl records.
“This (Super Bowl) broadcast will be in over 200 countries and 20 different languages,” he said.
Petway also said the regional economic impact for Jacksonville and the surrounding area will bring in between $300 million to $400 million. And with 325 small or emerging businesses participating in the Super Bowl effort, Petway said the impact will cover a wide spectrum of the community.